Grand Slam Track: A Start-Up League That Couldn't Pay Its Athletes

Timeline

1. Apr 2025Grand Slam Track holds its first meet, in Kingston, Jamaica.
2. Apr 11, 2025According to GST's court filings, Eldridge Industries says it will not make a proposed Series A investment.
3. Jun 12, 2025GST cancels its fourth meet, in Los Angeles, citing the economic landscape.
4. Jul 2025Johnson says an investor reneged on a deal, causing a cash-flow crisis.
5. Oct 2025Athletes receive about half of what they are owed, funded by emergency financing.
6. Dec 11, 2025Grand Slam Track files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
7. Feb 9, 2026GST files its combined disclosure statement and reorganization plan, with a Johnson-controlled entity as plan sponsor.
8. Apr 16, 2026The Delaware bankruptcy court confirms a plan paying athletes about 70% and vendors about 14%.
9. May 2026According to Johnson's spokesperson, GST pays the remaining athlete funds into escrow.
10. Sep 2026Agents say athletes are still waiting for the rest of their money.

The ethical issues

• Promises made to athletes without secure funding.
• Athletes as unsecured creditors.
• Transparency about a league's finances.
• Use of star athletes to sell a venture.
• The duties of founders and investors.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
Athletes	Being paid what they were promised.
Vendors	Payment for services.
Founders and investors	Recovering and reorganizing the venture.
Fans	New competitions.
World Athletics	The health of the sport.

The case

Track and field stars have long complained that their sport pays poorly outside the Olympics. Grand Slam Track (GST), founded by four-time Olympic champion Michael Johnson, promised to change that with large appearance fees and $12.6 million in prize money. Within a year it was in bankruptcy, and athletes were among its creditors.^[1][2] The case asks what a start-up league owes the athletes whose names sell it, how losses should be shared among creditors, and how athletes can protect themselves.

Background

GST organized men and women into six event groups of eight athletes each, such as short sprints, who raced the 100m and 200m each weekend. It offered up to $100,000 to category winners, plus salaries for contracted athletes, and signed stars such as Olympic sprinters Daryll Neita and Matthew Hudson-Smith and 1500m world champion Josh Kerr.^[4] Its season opened in Kingston, Jamaica, in April 2025, where ticket sales were low, followed by meets in Miami and Philadelphia.^[4]

On June 12, 2025, GST cancelled its fourth meet, in Los Angeles. “The global economic landscape has shifted dramatically in the past year, and this business decision has been made to ensure our long-term stability,” Johnson said, adding that the pilot season had achieved its objectives.^[4] In July, he said on Front Office Sports Today that an investor had reneged on a deal, causing a “major, major cash flow issue.” Front Office Sports noted that he had earlier said the league had more than $30 million in its coffers.^[2] FOS later reported that the league had lost Eldridge Capital, the firm of Chelsea and Dodgers owner Todd Boehly, as a prospective backer, and that it had run up more than $40 million in debts on less than $2 million in revenue.^[3]

Existing investors provided emergency financing in the fall, which GST used to pay athletes about half of what they were owed; some vendors rejected a similar deal.^[2]

The rules and governance

On December 11, 2025, GST filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a restructuring rather than a shutdown. It said “committed financing fell through” earlier in the year and that it would use the process “to stabilise its finances, implement a more efficient cost and operating model, and position GST for long-term success.” Johnson said: “I refuse to give up on the mission of Grand Slam Track.”^[2][5] According to the filings reported by Front Office Sports, it had about $143,000 in cash and about $31.4 million in debts, including about $11.4 million to Winners Alliance, about $7 million to athletes and about $13 million to vendors.^[2]

Winners Alliance, the for-profit arm of the Professional Tennis Players Association, had led GST’s first funding round and was its largest creditor; about $5.3 million of its claim was secured. It was the only one of 11 entities approached to offer debtor-in-possession financing, proposing $2.9 million at 14.5% interest. As a result, its new loans would be repaid before unsecured creditors such as athletes.^[2]

Above any league sits the sport’s governing body. World Athletics must authorize events on the international calendar. After the filing, its president, Sebastian Coe, said: “We have to police the calendar.” New events, he said, must “come to the table with the kind of credentials and assets” that make them “fireproof,” with “a plan A, and a bulletproof plan B.”^[6]

What the company told the court

GST’s own court filings give a fuller account of the collapse. According to its February 2026 disclosure statement, the company was incorporated in Delaware on December 28, 2023, and closed a seed round with Winners Alliance on April 12, 2024: $7 million in preferred equity and $6 million through a “SAFE,” an instrument that converts into equity later.^[8] Between January and March 2025, its banker, PJT Partners, contacted more than 150 potential investors, and managers took part in more than 30 pitch meetings. Many investors declined, the filing says, citing the league’s early stage, the lack of a full season of results and “the lack of a committed lead investor.”^[8]

On March 14, 2025, GST signed a non-binding term sheet with Eldridge Industries for a Series A investment that anticipated funding about two weeks later. In late March, Eldridge said it would wait until after the first meet. On April 11, after the Kingston meet, it told GST it would not invest.^[8] The company went ahead with Miami and Philadelphia on “several million dollars” raised from various sources. It said cancelling events would have disrupted athletes who had “structured their competitive calendars” around them, including their preparation for the World Championships.^[8] GST blamed its distress on a “high-cost structure” built to deliver a “premium, world-class product” in its first season, on capital needs that outpaced its resources, and on a “mismatch” between how fast revenue could grow and how fast it was spending.^[8] It reported 64,566 ticketed spectators across its first three meets and broadcast distribution in 205 countries and territories.^[8]

The filing also explains the timing of the bankruptcy. Before the petition, “a group of creditors delivered a written threat” to start an involuntary proceeding to liquidate GST, and the company said it filed “in large part” because of that threat.^[8][9] Its chief restructuring officer, a financial adviser appointed on December 4, 2025, told the court the case had been commenced “on an expedited basis” to “maintain control over the restructuring process.”^[9] The disclosure statement also noted that payments GST made to some vendors and athletes just before the filing “may be subject to avoidance” as preferences, though defenses might exist.^[8] Under the plan as filed, an entity owned and controlled at least in part by Johnson would fund the distributions and receive 100% of the reorganized company’s equity, with Winners Alliance providing all or part of the exit financing. The company said athletes and vendors in the favored classes provided “unique services” essential to its future.^[8]

The creditor fight

GST’s first proposed plan would have paid athletes 85% of their remaining claims but split only $200,000 among vendors, about 1.5% of what they were owed. Vendors, including production, media, technology and venue companies, objected that GST was illegally favoring athletes and sought court permission to sue. The sides settled in March 2026.^[3] Under the revised plan, funded by Winners Alliance and Johnson, athletes would receive about $4.9 million (about 70%) and vendors about $1.8 million (about 14%). Johnson agreed to return a $500,000 payment he had made to himself in June 2025, while denying wrongdoing.^[3] The broadcast production company was set to recover about $425,000 of more than $3 million owed.^[3]

Creditors voted overwhelmingly for the plan, and Chief Judge Karen B. Owens of the Delaware bankruptcy court confirmed it on April 16, 2026.^[3] At the hearing, lawyers disclosed that 17 athletes had mistakenly ticked a ballot box that would have moved them into the vendor class, at 14% instead of 70%. Thirteen corrected their ballots before the hearing.^[3] Johnson and the league’s chief operating officer kept control of the company, which said it wanted to return. GST’s lawyers said the outcome preserved it “as a going concern rather than resulting in a liquidation.”^[3][7]

Aftermath

In September 2026, the Guardian reported that athletes had still received only 50% of their earnings, nearly 15 months after the collapse. Four agents said their athletes were still waiting on large sums, despite Johnson saying the previous month that he had “got the athletes paid.” Agents hoped for roughly another 25% from an escrow account. Vendors had received 14%.^[1]

Johnson’s spokesperson said GST paid the remaining funds owed to athletes into an escrow account in May 2026, that distribution under the creditor-approved bankruptcy plan was controlled by Force10 Partners under the court’s supervision, and that Johnson “chose the bankruptcy process specifically for its transparency.”^[1] Several high-profile athletes were understood to be owed more than £100,000 each.^[1] Some agents and athletes floated requiring prize and appearance money to be placed in escrow before future competitions.^[3] Contrasting World Athletics’ Ultimate Championship with GST, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said: “I can guarantee you the athletes will be paid on time.”^[1]

The core dilemma

A start-up league needs star athletes to attract fans and investors, and athletes take risks on its promises. When funding fails, who should bear the loss: the athletes who performed, or the founders and investors who made the promises?

Competing values

• Innovation and risk-taking vs. reliability.
• Investors’ protections vs. athletes’ wages.
• Promotion vs. transparency.
• Founder reputation vs. accountability.

Strongest arguments

For the league’s defenders: new ventures carry risk; investors stepped in to pay half; bankruptcy offers an orderly, supervised process.

For the athletes: they performed in good faith; promises should not have been made without secure funding; athletes should not wait more than a year for pay.

Middle ground: future leagues should escrow athlete pay before events.

Applying the frameworks

Justice

A justice lens asks whether bankruptcy priorities fairly treat workers who performed.

Kantian ethics

A Kantian lens asks whether promises were made that could not be kept, using athletes as means.

Virtue ethics

A virtue lens asks what honesty and prudence require of founders.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are an agent deciding whether to sign your athlete with a new league. Stakeholders include the athlete and the league. Less visible are vendors. The codes are contract and bankruptcy law.
2. Gather facts. Is the funding secured? Beware relying on public claims.
3. Test options. (a) Sign as offered. (b) Demand escrow or guarantees. (c) Decline.
4. Check codes and law. Understand where athletes rank as creditors.
5. Decide and document. Record the guarantees.
6. Communicate and follow up. Monitor payments.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: the bankruptcy filing and the debts reported in filings; the 50% payment.
• Contested: when the remaining funds reach athletes; responsibility for the collapse.

Why this case matters

Grand Slam Track shows the risks athletes take when they lend their names to new ventures. See also the LIV Golf restructuring.

Key terms

Commercialization

The process of turning sport into a product and a business enterprise, with profit pressures that can compete with principle.

Trust

The public’s belief that what they are watching is real. Integrity failures are ultimately failures of trust.

Stakeholders

Everyone with something at stake in a decision: athletes, coaches, parents, officials, fans, employees, sponsors, media, communities and regulators, including the less visible ones.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Principal–agent problem

When those acting on others’ behalf (agents such as executives, officials or agents) have interests that diverge from the people they serve.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. What duties do founders of start-up leagues owe the athletes they recruit?
2. Should athletes' wages get priority over investors in bankruptcy?
3. How should athletes assess the financial stability of a new league?
4. Does a founder's reputation increase their responsibility?

Sources

1. Leading athletes still waiting on large sums owed by ill-fated Grand Slam Track (Sep. 11, 2026) — The Guardian
2. Grand Slam Track Owes More Than $31 Million, New Filings Show — Front Office Sports
3. Grand Slam Track's contentious bankruptcy is over. Now what? (Apr. 16, 2026) — Front Office Sports
4. Final Grand Slam Track event in Los Angeles cancelled (June 12, 2025) — BBC Sport
5. Grand Slam Track files for bankruptcy to 'reorganise' (Dec. 2025) — BBC Sport
6. Calendar must be policed after Grand Slam Track bankruptcy - Coe (Dec. 2025) — BBC Sport
7. Reed Smith represents Grand Slam Track in Chapter 11 restructuring and plan confirmation (June 10, 2026) — Reed Smith
8. In re GST, Inc., No. 25-12188 (KBO), Combined Disclosure Statement and Chapter 11 Plan of Reorganization (Bankr. D. Del. filed Feb. 9, 2026), Doc. 101 — U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (via CourtListener)
9. In re GST, Inc., No. 25-12188 (KBO), Declaration of Chief Restructuring Officer in Support of First Day Pleadings (Bankr. D. Del. filed Dec. 18, 2025), Doc. 6 — U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware (via CourtListener)